Attorney (B.Bus.Sci LLB LLM Magna Cum Laude, UCT); PhD Candidate (Leiden Law School, the Netherlands); Legal Scholar (Public Law, UCT); Co-Founder & Director of SA Legal Advice
Lauren graduated with a B.Bus.Sci (Distinction in Law) from UCT, having won various academic prizes and class medals, including the class medal for Public Sector Economics. She went on to complete her LLB, graduating Magna Cum Laude and with several special awards, including the LexisNexis Butterworths Prize for coming 1st in class overall, the John Kotze Medal for best performance in Private Law & Roman Law and the Bar Council Moot Prize. After completing her LLB, Lauren went on to practice as an Attorney at Webber Wentzel for several years.
She attained distinctions in all 4 of the Bar Exams and the highest overall result for the Cape of Good Hope Court Practice Bar Exam (with 85%). While practising, Lauren specialised in Public Law and did primarily judicial review and legal opinion work. Her advice spanned an array of fields including Administrative Law, Environmental Law, Procurement Law, Human Rights Law and Regulatory Law in several industries (tobacco products control, health law, transport and others). As a member of the City’s legal team she wrote numerous Opinions pertaining to the BRT System.
In 2011 Lauren was awarded several scholarships to complete her LLM full-time, including the David & Elaine Potter Fellowship (for ‘academic excellence & dedication to uplifting civil society‘) and the DAAD-NRF Scholarship from the Federal Republic of Germany (‘for academic ability and having the potential to have a “multiplicator effect” in society‘). Lauren was the only Law student to have been recognized out of all the scholarship holders from across South Africa – most of whom are drawn from the Sciences. She completed her LLM in 2012, graduating with Distinction and the top result in each of her courses. An article based upon her Dissertation entitled, ‘The burgeoning constitutional requirement of rationality and the separation of powers: Has rationality review gone too far?‘ was published in the SALJ (2013) and has since been cited with approval in High Court judgments.
Lauren currently lectures in Constitutional and Administrative Law, as well as Administrative Justice & Open Governance at the UCT Law Faculty. Since joining academia, she has published widely and was honoured with the 2016 Law Faculty Research Prize. She is currently undertaking a book project in the field of Administrative Law, and is pursuing a PhD through Leiden University in Holland (on the separation of powers doctrine). Lauren is passionate about being an educator and is committed to social justice and academic development. She aims to inspire the future legal minds of South Africa and positively influence the development of the law.
Given Lauren’s commitment to improve the accessibility and affordability of legal services in South Africa, she co-founded the on-line Legal Services platform: South African Legal Advice (https://www.salegaladvice.co.za/). The easy-to-use service enables any member of the public to ask discrete legal questions in a variety of fields for expedient, quality, confidential and cost-effective legal answers by one of the Attorneys on the panel with expertise in the relevant field. Lauren also offers formal legal consulting services in a variety of fields and has drafted various Opinions for the likes of construction companies (on procurement issues); tech-start ups in the transport and health sectors; and various NGOs on administrative law issues.
Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Attorney (Western Cape Division High Court); Academic (UCT)
B.Bus.Sci (Distinction In Law); LLB (Magna Cum Laude); LLM (Distinction); Current PhD Candidate (Leiden University)